The art and science of risk management - A US research-based industry perspective

The research-based pharmaceutical industry in the US strongly supports the concepts of risk management and sees formal risk management as playing a major role in the development of safe medicines for the public, as well as providing a mechanism to ensure that decisions concerning individual drug benefit and risk are made based on scientific evidence. Safe medicines refer to those drugs whose benefits have been found to outweigh their risks when they are used according to the approved labelling. Risk management is the comprehensive and proactive application of scientifically based methodologies to identify, assess, communicate and minimise risk throughout the life cycle of a drug so as to establish and maintain a favourable benefit-risk balance in patients. Although there are certainly a number of global risk management initiatives in place or being undertaken, harmonisation has yet to be achieved. Industry is faced with a variety of different risk management approaches and tools. There is a need to move the focus of risk management from the post-approval arena to earlier in the development process and tools need to be developed to support risk management throughout the lifecycle of a drug. The focus in the US on risk minimalisation strategies will also be an area for methodological development. A key factor in the success of overall risk management is the dialogue between industry and regulators throughout the development, review and marketing of the product. It is through such dialogue that appropriate, efficient and effective risk management strategies will be developed and implemented and the best decisions regarding the safe use of pharmaceutical products will be made.